Betfred withdraws sponsorship from British Classics horse races

Betfred has confirmed it is cutting its sponsorship of the British Classics, following through on warnings it gave earlier this year, according to SBC News.

The move comes two months after the company's nine-year partnership with the Super League, British rugby league's top flight, ended in September.

SBC News reports that the decision is largely, if not entirely, tied to two UK budgets, delivered in November 2025 and October 2026, which each increased taxes on gambling.

Betfred's branding will no longer appear at Newmarket's 1,000 Guineas and 2,000 Guineas races, at the Epsom Derby or Oaks, or at the St Leger in Doncaster.

Citing figures from The Telegraph, SBC News reports that Betfred has put millions of pounds into backing these five races over the years, and had only added its sponsorship of the Newmarket Guineas meetings in 2025.

Fred Done, Betfred's founder and owner, said earlier this year that the business would likely be forced into cutting its support for the British Classics as a cost-saving step if Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey pushed through a further tax rise in his October budget.

Marketing has been one of the first areas targeted for budget cuts, alongside redundancies, since Rachel Reeves's 2025 budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer raised Remote Gaming Duty from 21% to 40% with effect from 1 April 2026.

In the wake of that budget, the three largest B2C gambling operators listed on public markets and active in Britain, Flutter Entertainment, Entain and evoke, all said their marketing budgets would be reduced by around 20%.

Betfred's withdrawal from the British Classics follows comparable moves by Coral and bet365, with Coral ending its decades-long support of the Coral Cup after Reeves's budget.

Betfred operates more than 1,300 betting shops across the UK, and the increase in Machine Gaming Duty from 20% to 25% under Healey's budget is expected to have a significant effect on its finances, though a lesser one than if the rate had risen to 40%, as the Social Market Foundation had called for.

The company has already confirmed that 130 of its 1,300 shops will close, around 10% of its existing high street estate.

The industry's adjustment to April's Remote Gaming Duty rise comes ahead of further changes from 1 April 2026, when Machine Gaming Duty and General Betting Duty, the latter rising from 15% to 25%, both increase, though retail betting is exempt from the General Betting Duty change.